East Slopes Central

The east slopes of the Cascades received little to no new snow, and avalanches will be unlikely. The most significant hazard will likely be challenging travel on icy surfaces, so bring appropriate equipment to prevent uncontrollable slides. If you are traveling near the Cascade Crest, you may find a small amount of new snow over the crust and be able to trigger mini wet avalanches on steep sunny slopes. 

Recent weather has been partly to mostly sunny skies with maybe 1-2 inches of snow on the western edge of the zone near the Cascade Crest. With clearing near the crest on Wednesday, you may be able to trigger mini wet loose avalanches that run easily on a stout crust from Valentine's Day. These mini avalanches will likely be too small to be a hazard by themselves but travel cautiously in areas where getting pushed off balance may result in long uncontrollable falls or impacts with obstacles increase the consequences. Challenging travel conditions on icy surfaces will be the main hazard. Cooler temperatures may make surfaces slower to soften, and slopes without direct sunlight probably won't soften at all. So bring equipment to prevent long uncontrollable falls. 

On Tuesdays, observers on sunny, south aspects near Holden Village reported solid freezes with supportive crusts and soft "corn" surface snow at 1p from upper elevations down to 3,200ft. Much of the upper snowpack (including the late January weak layer) had transitioned to melt forms. See profile photo below. In some locations near the crest, weak faceted snow may exist above or beneath a crust from late January. We haven't seen avalanches on this layer yet in this zone, but an observer reported a very large collapse at 4,000ft near Eightmile Lake last week. On Monday, forecaster Irene Henninger found this weak structure near Holden just about 5cm below the surface. While this isn't currently an issue, additional snow on top of this crust-facet combination may create a tricky persistent slab problem. Dig down and evaluate these layers if you are traveling on northern sheltered terrain. Look for weak, sugary snow over or below a firm melt-freeze crust.